The sonic boom problem

Did you know a dinosaur rattles the tail on the ground which covers 1200km/h to detect predators? A snap of the enormous sized claw of shrimps can create a shock wave to kill its prey.

What about the shock waves in the plain?

We know that measurement MACH number is a ratio of the speed of an object traveling through a gas to the speed of sound in that gas because air is made up of molecules and like other physical substances, the air molecules can compress after which they form shock waves that make flying faster than the speed of sound.

Challenges faced by pilots

• In the 1940s, these shockwaves vibrate the air molecules they’re made of, whilst vibrating they also vibrate whatever is compressing them. The shock wave can shake the airplane hard enough in a fast-flying airplane. Later the Bell Aircraft corporation worked on a contract with US Army Air Force to devise the solution, being inspired by a bullet, Bell engineers built the x-1 aircraft to break through the wall of compressed air in the sky.

• Sonic boom, the sound an airplane makes when it smashes through a wall of compressed air that builds up in the front of it. But it doesn’t come when the plane goes supersonic, it keeps going in the wake of that supersonic aircraft, for which NASA and its aviation partners are looking into identifying an acceptable loudness level and working on “low boom” aircraft to diminish sonic boom levels.

How do I detect it?

No sound will be heard as it approaches you as it travels faster than the sound it produced, but you will hear a sonic boom after the object has passed the observer.

When the Mach imaginary hyperbola leaves a booming carpet as it moves forward which makes us determine the area affected by the sonic boom. You can solve the Navier-strokes equation to find how sturdy the sonic boom is.

Researchers are working strenuously to mitigate the effects.

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